


The Almost-Daughter

by stardustandswimmingpools



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: 'cause it's hopper, Brief References to Alcohol, Domestic Fluff, Family Feels, Father Figures, Father-Daughter Relationship, Flashbacks, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Illiteracy, Jim Hopper: Lovable Grouch, Learning to read, Mild Language, Reading Aloud, Slice of Life, Teenage Rebellion, again: 'cause hopper, because i feel like it!, bittersweet for hopper i guess, sorry but i somehow became obsessed with these two, sorta - Freeform, the usual defiance lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 18:52:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12613124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustandswimmingpools/pseuds/stardustandswimmingpools
Summary: Day 42:As soon as the cabin is more or less in order and Eleven has stopped jumping whenever anything moves, which Hopper counts as progress, he starts teaching her stuff. Not on any kind of schedule: just as they come up. A lot of it is words. The kid barely talks, and even though Hopper starts to understand her short manner of speech, it would be a hell of a lot easier if she’d just say sentences.So Hopper starts having her read.The first obstacle to this endeavor, of course, is that Eleven does not know how to read.





	The Almost-Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. i'm a goddamn sucker for found families  
> 2\. this fic spawned from #30 from that tumblr list "100 ways to say I love you". As you may or may not recall I have another Stranger Things fic with prompts from that list (it's a Mileven fic and it's [right here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8592454) please read it it's cute trust me), and I went back to it intending to reprise that fic from El's point of view, and instead this thing happened  
> 3\. I actually did research on, like, kids books that were written in or before the 80s. be proud of me! the ones listed are just the names i recognized lol  
> Please enjoy this little Hopper & El family feels fic <3

**Day 42:**

As soon as the cabin is more or less in order and Eleven has stopped jumping whenever anything moves, which Hopper counts as progress, he starts teaching her stuff. Not on any kind of schedule: just as they come up. A lot of it is words. The kid barely talks, and even though Hopper starts to understand her short manner of speech, it would be a hell of a lot easier if she’d just say sentences.

So Hopper starts having her read.

The first obstacle to this endeavor, of course, is that Eleven does not know how to read.

“Shit,” Hopper mutters after watching the kid stare blankly at a newspaper article about a new movie for about five minutes. “Alright, how about this? I’ll stop by the store and get you some books, and after work I’ll read them to you. That sound good?”

Eleven looks up at him. “Good.”

“Alright.” He hefts his jacket onto his shoulders, shoving a reheated Eggo into his mouth. “You take a stab at reading that.”

“Take a stab?” El repeats, alarmed.

Hopper will really have to learn to watch his phrasing.

“It means give it a try,” he amends. “Just keep working on it. I’ll be home at eight-fifteen.”

“8-1-5,” El affirms.

“Eight-fifteen.” He’ll teach this kid how to talk like a normal person if it kills him.

It’s gonna be awhile before she’s able to see anyone else, so he really doesn’t have a choice. Being responsible for another human’s life for the first time since Sara is a shock to his system. No more drinking himself stupid. No more watching TV until the sun rises. No more beer in the fridge. Alright, maybe a little beer in the fridge.

He’s going to have to act like…

Like a dad again.

“Eight...fifteen.” Eleven looks confused as she says this, but she allows it anyway. “Okay.”

“You be good, alright? Don’t leave the cabin,” he warns her. “Follow the rules.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Eleven nods sharply.

“That’s right. Alright, I’ll see you after work, kid.” He lets himself out the door and closes it behind him. He can hear the locks clicking.

What kinds of books would an illiterate, universally isolated twelve-year-old want to read?

* * *

 

_Two knocks. One knock. Three knocks._

All four locks inside click, and Hopper manages to maneuver the stack of books to one hand so he can open the door with the other. He puts the stack on the island, then takes his hat and jacket off. There’s a bit of a draft inside — it’s getting colder and colder as they delve deeper into winter — so Hopper crosses to turn the heat on.

“Kid, I got you some books,” he calls out as he opens the fridge and pulls out a can of beer.

“Books?”

“Yeah, remember this morning I told you I was gonna find you some books so you could learn to read?” Hopper crosses once more to the small, two-person table, and claims his seat, slumping against the back of the chair.

Eleven pads out of her room, her socks muffling the sound of her footsteps. She always walks lightly. “I,” she says, pointing to herself, “am going to read?”

“I’m gonna teach you, yeah.” Hopper puts the can of beer to his mouth and swallows a mouthful. It’s not even that he enjoys the taste of beer, but what the hell else is he gonna drink? Especially now that there’s a kid around. He’s started buying apple juice. Kids are impressionable — Hopper’s not stupid. He’s a cop. He’s seen enough shit with kids to know that drinking and smoking around them is an almost foolproof way to get them to drink and smoke.

Still, he’s not about to totally ditch his former lifestyle. Eleven, for all her lack of traditional education, is a smart kid. She figures out quickly not to touch Hopper’s drinks or cigarettes. She doesn’t even want them.

* * *

**_Day 16:_**

_“This is beer,” he tells her questioning look._

_“Beer?”_

_“Yeah, it’s alcohol. You drink it.”_

_“Alcohol?”_

_Hopper sighs. “It’s kind of like poison for your body.”_

_“Why drink poison?” El cries, apparently so distressed by this as to make the bottle forcefully drop out of Hopper’s grip and crash onto the floor. The drink pools and starts to run, and the smashed glass glints from the overhead light._

_“Shit, kid! Don’t do that! It’s not — Jesus.” He presses the heel of his hand to his forehead. “It’s not_ real _poison. It’s just not good for you. If you drink too much, you’ll damage your insides. Drinking it sometimes is okay.” He glances down at the puddle, then up at Eleven’s face. “Clean it up.”_

_Eleven dutifully retrieves a dustpan and broom and sweeps up the shattered glass. “Can I drink?” she asks as she cleans. Her earnest eyes pierce his._

_“Not a chance,” he says. “It’s only okay for adults. Kids’ brains are still developing. It would stunt your growth or some shit like that.”_

_“Stunt...growth,” Eleven says slowly. She levitates the dustpan, now full of pieces of broken glass, over to the trash can, and dumps it in before letting the dustpan clatter to the floor. A dish towel bobs through the air to her hand._

_“Make you grow slower,” Hopper says. “Or not at all.”_

_“Bad,” Eleven guesses._

_“Yeah, bad. So don’t drink alcohol. And don’t touch my beer, okay?” He looks down at the mess that is almost gone. It’s probably a good idea to buy beer in cans from now on._

* * *

**_Day 27:_**

_“Kid!”_

_Eleven appears in the doorway of her assigned bedroom. “What?”_

_Hopper shakes the pack of cigarettes under her nose. There’s a space where one is missing. “Did you touch my cigarettes?”_

_Eleven crosses her arms over her chest. She’s getting defiant for a kid who was so weak when Hopper found her. “Bored,” she tells him. She lifts her chin in rebellion._

_Hopper thinks,_ oh God, I’m raising a teenager.

_“I’m only going to say this once,” he growls. “Do. Not. Smoke. Cigarettes. You hear me?”_

_“Why not?” Eleven challenges._

_“Because they’re bad for you,” Hopper snaps. “Remember alcohol? Remember how it’s poison for your body? So are cigarettes.”_

_“Why do you smoke?” Eleven asks him, in a less defiant and more curious tone. “Why do you...like...poison?”_

_Hopper straightens up. “Doesn’t matter, kid. Repeat after me: I won’t smoke and I won’t drink beer.”_

_“I won’t smoke,” Eleven says, “and I won’t drink beer.” She wrinkles her nose. “Poison.”_

_“Yeah, exactly right. Poison. You don’t want that in your system, do you?” Eleven shakes her head. “Didn’t think so.” After a moment, he tosses the cigs onto the couch and reluctantly adds, “It’s okay if you tried one, okay? It’s good to try things. Just don’t have any more.”_

_“Didn’t like it,” Eleven admits as they walk to the table, where a lukewarm microwave meal sits at both place settings._

_Hopper barks a laugh._

* * *

 

“Read what?” Eleven asks, taking her seat opposite him. She waits until he starts unwrapping his meal to tear the foil off of her own. Chicken, mashed potatoes, and peas, which is par for the course. Hopper curses himself sometimes for not learning to cook a greater variety of food. For now, microwave dinners will have to do. It’s probably better than whatever crap they gave her at the lab, or all those Eggos the Wheeler kid fed her in secret.

Hopper gestures vaguely behind him, to the tall pile of books on the countertop. “You can pick one for us to read. I’ll read it to you until we finish it. One chapter a night or something.”

Eleven seems eager at the prospect of being read to. She digs into her meal with voracity, and even finishes her peas, in record time. Hopper is only halfway done with his food when she speaks for the first time since she’d started eating. “Done. Read now?”

Hopper slowly lifts his head up and gives her a blunt look. “Do I look done to you?”

Eleven pouts, crossing her arms over her chest and slouching in her seat. She looks like an honest-to-God teenager. It’s unnerving.

Her hair hasn’t quite grown out yet: it’s still in its fuzzy stages, so her head is soft to the touch and there are curls of hair that just barely wind around the bottom of her ears. Hopper couldn’t care less if her hair looks put-together, and it’s obvious Eleven doesn’t either. No one is around to give a shit. She certainly looks better than Hopper does many nights.

It’s interesting, in a way, interacting with someone who has never been a part of society. Eleven doesn’t know the “rules”. She doesn’t know about modesty. Hopper doesn’t care to tell her. He really doesn’t care if she changes in the living room. Hell, she could change on the fucking porch as long as she doesn’t freeze. She doesn’t know that girls don’t normally wear big gray sweatshirts and ratty overalls. She doesn’t know that when a sex scene comes on on TV, you’re not supposed to say, “What is that?”

Hopper _definitely_ saves that explanation for a later time. He changes the channel.

Sometimes it occurs to him that he’s not exactly the poster boy for raising a child well. He drinks, he smokes, and he’s had more one-night stands than he’s comfortable admitting. Not that Eleven really sees any of these things as indications of a bad influence (and she doesn’t know about the one-night stands): it’s another thing Eleven doesn’t really get. Behavior. He slouches and spreads his legs when he sits, so she does too. He says _shit_ , so she does too. He regularly goes to work when he has to, so when he puts her to work, she does it diligently and almost always without complaint.

Right now, she’s staring intensely at him, as if it will make him eat faster.

“Would you just relax?” he finally says, his fork hovering halfway from his mashed potatoes to his mouth. Eleven looks away haughtily.

“Want to read,” she says. If nothing else, she’s always very forthright. No ulterior motives with this one.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Hopper says sardonically. He swallows his forkful. “You’ll have to be patient.”

“Patient.”

“Yeah, patient. P-A-T-I-E-N-T. It means waiting without complaining. How’s that for a word of the day?”

“I am patient,” Eleven argues. “I wait all day.”

She’s got him there.

Feeling merciful, and not exactly in the mood for a fight, Hopper wolfs down the last of his meal. “Alright,” he says at last. “I’m done. Clear the dishes, then we’ll read, okay?”

He stacks their dinner trays and, as she takes them to the kitchen to throw them away, as obliging as ever, he quickly slips into his bedroom to change out of his chief uniform. Eleven might not care for modesty, but Hopper is not going to undress in front of a twelve-year-old girl, circumstances notwithstanding.

When he comes out, now much more comfortably dressed in a white t-shirt and sweatpants, she’s sitting on the couch, the stack of books levitating in front of her focused face. Even in her state of concentration, she’s slumped back against the cushions, and her legs are spread apart. Hopper laughs, which surprises the kid enough to make her drop the books.

“Why are you laughing?”

He sits next to her on the sofa. “Nothing, kid. You’re just funny.”

“I’m funny?”

“Forget it. So, these books, yeah? Did you look at them?”

Eleven shakes her head.

“Alright, let’s see what we got,” Hopper says, leaning over with a grunt to retrieve the now collapsed pile. He stacks them on his knees and reads out each title as he goes. “ _The Secret Garden_ ,” he begins. “ _All-Of-A-Kind Family,_ that’s a cute one. _Hatchet, From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, A Wrinkle in Time, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG_ — actually, you know what, maybe not a Dahl book. Those ones have made-up words. And _Black Stallion._ ” He slaps the final book on the top of the pile, extracts the Roald Dahl books, and turns to her. “You wanna pick one?”

Eleven’s eyes widen. “Lot of books.”

“Sure is. Choose one.”

El scans the titles (which Hopper thinks is funny, because she can’t read them, but to each their own). She pulls the books off the stack one by one and compares them, side by side.

“Sometime today, kid,” Hopper says.

“This one.” Eleven holds up _From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler._ “Sister,” she says, pointing to the girl on the cover who’s shushing a boy, obviously hiding in a dark museum. “Brother,” she adds, and points to the boy being shushed.

Hopper’s not surprised at her choice, although her insight takes him aback. “ _Mixed-Up Files_ it is,” he says. “Okay, you look over my shoulder while I read so you can see which words I’m saying when. Understand?”

Eleven nods and curls up next to him as he cracks the spine of the book and flips to the first page. Her head is on his bicep, which makes it hard to flip the pages, so he surrenders and puts his arm around her shoulders. She moves closer, her cheek pressed against his chest, obviously waiting (patiently) for the reading to start.

Hopper looks down at her small face and feels a familiar pang.

It's like having a daughter.

Before that emotion can become dominant, he clears his throat. “Ahem. _From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler_ , by E.L. Konigsburg _._ ” He glances down at Eleven and she’s listening intently, so he clears his throat once more for good measure, looks at the beginning of the book (the title of the novel is vaguely familiar, like the feeling of returning to your hometown once it’s all been torn down, but if he’s ever read it, he doesn’t remember at all what it’s about), and starts to read, using his finger to follow the words.

“ _To my lawyer, Saxonberg:…_ ”

* * *

 

“ _...And he pouted all the way home._ ” Hopper closes the book, leaving his finger in to bookmark the page, and looks at Eleven’s small figure. She hasn’t moved for the last fifteen minutes — since he started reading. For a second he thinks she probably fell asleep (and he doesn’t blame her, with the way this story is going), when she stirs.

“I liked it,” she says, looking up at Hopper with big, bright eyes.

“Good, ‘cause we’re gonna finish it,” Hopper tells her. “Did you see the words I was reading?”

Eleven nods. She reaches over and pushes the book back open. “Claudia,” she says, carefully enunciating as her finger finds Claudia’s name in the book. “Jamie,” she continues, finding his name. “Money.”

Hopper laughs. “Not bad for a beginner.”

“Claudia is running away,” Eleven recounts.

Hopper nods. “She sure is, kid.”

“Like I did.”

Hopper pauses. “It’s a little different.”

“How?”

“Claudia is running away because she’s bored,” Hopper says. “You ran away so you wouldn’t — because they were treating you like crap.”

“Like crap,” Eleven echoes in a murmur.

She seems to have nothing left to say about that, which is just fine on Hopper’s end. He doesn’t have anything to say to it either: Eleven ran away from being a lab rat, and that’s the end of that.

“One more chapter,” Eleven finally says.

Hopper closes the book. “Nope. Sorry, kiddo. One chapter a night, that’s what I said. You’re gonna fall asleep anyway, look at you!”

“I won’t,” Eleven says, determinedly sitting upright. “I won’t sleep.”

“Sorry, kid,” Hopper repeats, and tosses the book to the floor.

It doesn’t land — just sits, hovering, in midair.

Then it slowly flies back into Hopper’s lap.

Eleven looks at him with imploring eyes. “Please?” Her small hands clutch at his wrist.

Hopper sighs loudly and melodramatically. “Okay, _fine._ Just one chapter, that’s _it._ And then it’s bedtime, you hear?”

“Okay,” Eleven says happily. She leans against his chest again. “Chapter two.”

“Chapter two,” Hopper agrees. He slides a hand up his face and through his unruly hair, trying to shake off the sleepiness for a little longer.

Halfway through the chapter, she falls asleep. He feels her breathing steady, sees her chin slump down and her shoulders sag. Shaking his head, bemused, he sets the book aside.

She’s nearly as small and light as the stack of books. He lays her down on her bed and tucks the covers over her chin when her eyes flutter open.

“I told you you’d fall asleep,” Hopper whispers.

“Sorry,” Eleven mumbles glumy.

Hopper ruffles her hair gently. “It’s alright, kid. We’ll keep reading tomorrow. Get some sleep.”

“I won’t run away,” Eleven says in a hushed voice as Hopper turns to leave the room. He turns around and her eyes are closed. “Like Claudia. Even if I am bored.”

Hopper chuckles despite himself. “Yeah. Neither will I, alright? See you in the morning.”

“Goodnight, Hopper,” Eleven yawns. She’s already dozing off again.

Hopper stands in her doorway a moment longer, watching her sleep soundly, her cheek pressing into the pillow, a corner of her comforter balled up in her arms like a stuffed animal. Practically without thinking, he makes a mental note to get her a stuffed animal to sleep with. She would like that.

It’s almost like having a daughter.

He contemplates her for another second, then closes the door definitively.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm literally obsessed with the relationship between these two, what the hell. anyhow fun fact: originally i was going to have her reading all-of-a-kind family but i couldn't fucking find a PDF of it online, and i checked my bookshelf, and we literally own #2-5, but not the first goddamn book. what a weird obstacle, right? but anyway, i like the mixed-up files. in any case, thank you thank you thank you for reading! go ahead and leave a comment if you're feeling up to it, i'd really love that. and have a super great day! cheers!


End file.
